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Debate ramps up over phonics instruction
A dispute between experts has emerged on whether Australian schools should adopt the same Year 1 phonics check currently being conducted in the UK.
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The value of teaching phonics is indisputable and not what this debate is about. This is about the purchase of the UK Phonics Check and the fact that this check has been identified by educators, academics and educational bodies in both the UK and Australia as a flawed test/check.
As such, why is our government being guided to use millions in taxpayers funds to rollout it out Australia? Why are Australian teachers being subjected to delivering a flawed check and sadly, why subject our six year olds to undergo a flawed check?
As the test stands now, besides obvious flaws, children with very little phonics understanding can pass the test by memorising a small number of spelling choices while those with greater phonics understanding and who are reading competently can fail the test. The check risks flagging the wrong learners and more importantly not flagging those at risk.
In the UK there has been a rise in results. We, the public are being lead to believe this rise is in ‘reading results’, which is untrue. There is no identifiable change in reading results in the UK since the introduction of the test. The rise in results is only in identifying a selected and restricted number of spelling choices to read pseudo words and real words. Teaching to the test has been identified as a reason for the rise. Not surprisingly, there are multitudes of commercial and government produced ‘practise sheets’ for both school and home use, many of these produced by those championing the check.
There is confusion by Jennifer Buckingham in this article, no one expects six year olds to give all ‘alternative pronunciations’ but we should definitely expect our teachers to be aware of all the alternative pronunciations so they are able to deliver and mark the test correctly and accurately. This is not the case with the marking guides provided with each yearly check.
I have now given this ‘check’ to a large number of teachers. On analysing the results children would have been marked incorrect where they were correct and visa versa. Australian teachers and early learners deserve better than a flawed phonics test purchased from the UK.
Anti UK Phonics Check is not anti phonics, it is anti an identified flawed phonics check. We are in economic crisis, this purchase is a waste taxpayers money.